


lives apart

by StarlightDragon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Eventual Happy Ending, First Meetings, Lots and lots of AUs, M/M, so basically the same as the show, they die but they always come back to life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4313541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightDragon/pseuds/StarlightDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>dean winchester and castiel novak spend a hundred lifetimes apart, waiting for the one where they can finally be together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lives apart

**Author's Note:**

> So this is something a little different that I thought would be really fun to write because it allowed me to try out a whole bunch of characterizations of Dean and Cas at once without necessarily committing to a whole fic. Also, it's your daily reminder that there two are literally meant to be together and will ALWAYS find each other in every single AU.
> 
> My friend Annie says this is implausible because all the reincarnations take place in the same time period. So please suspend your disbelief for the purposes of my OTP.
> 
> This is my tenth fic published on ao3 for supernatural in the past few months, which is a huge milestone for me. I always wanted to write fic but could never really commit to it, so it means a lot that you guys are giving me great feedback and keeping me going.

**1**

In their first life, they barely meet. 

It's an ordinary Monday morning and, uncharacteristically, Dean Winchester is late for work. His brother Sam brought his new girlfriend Jess to stay for the weekend and they wouldn't stop talking over breakfast, meaning Dean's getting on the subway a good twenty minutes after he usually does. He's terrified of his boss, a creepy guy with a British accent who only ever wears all black, and in his hurry to get to work Dean knocks into a guy getting off at the same stop as him. The man, who wears a long tan trench coat and has an ID badge from the art museum, drops his expensive coffee, and a creamy light brown liquid spills all over the platform.

"I'm so sorry," Dean apologizes as the man rights himself on Dean's shoulder. "Here..."

Dean digs into his pocket and pulls out a five dollar bill. "For the coffee."

He thrusts it into the man's hand and is off running up the stairs out of the subway station and across the road to his office building again before the guy can reply, or refuse, or have any kind of reaction at all, and it isn't until Dean is putting down the phone after the second sales call of the day, spinning idly on his swivel chair waiting for a report from his assistant, that he realizes the man was really, really attractive.

He knows where the guy works, of course. He thinks about heading over to the art museum on his lunch break and having a look around for him, just out of curiosity, but quickly dismisses the idea. There are plenty of attractive people in the world; hell, even in this building. There's no reason for him to think that there's anything special about this one guy.

**2**

In their second life, they meet, and something feels familiar. 

The circumstances are completely different. Dean and Cas themselves are completely different. Dean doesn't have his own apartment and a high paying job; he still lives in his childhood house with his brother despite both of them being in their thirties, and this time Dean's a construction worker. He's content enough in his life, and he likes things to be normal. He likes having barbecues with the neighbors and going out for drinks after work and he definitely does not like being dragged to some weird hippie camp by his brother.

Dean complains for the entire week between Sam booking and them leaving and he complains so loudly on the drive over that Sam turns off the car stereo and puts in his own fucking headphones and all Dean's worst fears are confirmed when they arrive and they meet the guy who's running things. He says his name is Castiel and Dean snorts because there's no way that's his real name, but Castiel just stands there looking pleased with himself with his stupid scruffy beard and his stupid too big shirt.

But later that night when Dean's tossing and turning in a tent, trying to get comfortable in a bed with a mattress made of literal sawdust, the camp leader's face keeps floating into his mind, and Dean feels a weird sense of deja vu that he can't shake off. He's sure he's seen the guy before somewhere, even though he has no clue where that might be, considering they're all the way out in the Missouri mountains, far from anywhere Dean's ever been before.

Dean tries to get out of as many meditation sessions and homemade candle making activities as he can, and when Sam forces him to participate, he stays at the back of the group and keeps his mouth shut. But he catches Castiel giving him curious looks from time to time, and at the end of the fourth day, coincidence leaves the two of them alone to cook chickpeas over a fire.

"You seem familiar," the guy murmurs after a long silence, and it takes a while before Dean even notices he's being spoken to. "You been to one of these things before?"

"Me? Hell no," Dean replies, not even caring about offending him.

"No, you don't seem the type," Castiel muses, not offended at all. "I wonder what it is... Perhaps we knew each other in a past life."

Dean scoffs at that. Past lives, his ass. 

The chickpeas boil and Dean and Castiel carry them back to the rest of the group. They aren't alone together at all the rest of the retreat, but Dean doesn't skip out on any more sessions.

Sam insists they're going to go back the following year. Dean complains the entire way home so that Sam won't get suspicious, but secretly he kind of wants to. Only, by the following year Sam has started dating this girl Amelia and he decides to take her instead since she'll actually enjoy it and since Dean complained so much, and there's no way Dean can get in on their plans without Sam asking all kinds of awkward questions.

Questions even Dean himself has no answer for.

**3**

In their third life, they date. Dean's in the record store flipping through classic rock albums, past Yes, Neil Young, Frank Zappa, ZZ Top, when suddenly the album covers starts changing and Dean stops recognizing the names of the artists. He jumps back in horror when he realizes he's moved into the classical music section by mistake and quickly retreats to the rock section where he feels safe, and when he looks up, there's a man standing in front of the classical albums, laughing at him.

Dean rolls his eyes, not in the mood to get into an argument with some classical music snob, but the man comes over. 

"You know, I know classical music isn't for everyone, but if you let me, I bet I could find at least one album that you like."

Dean scowls, pretending he's not a little turned on by that deep, scratchy voice.

"Oh yeah? How are you going to do that when I refuse to touch any of those things-" he gestures towards the offending records in the man's arm- "let alone actually take them up to the counter and give money for them?"

The man pretends to consider this problem. "Well, I suppose you would have to come to my house. I have all my favorite records there. You wouldn't have to touch them or pay for them. Also, there's food."

"I mean, if there's food..." Dean pretends that's the only thing that's swayed him. He loves food, but in this particular case, it has nothing to do with it. It's more to do with the fact that this is one of the most beautiful men Dean's ever seen and he really wouldn't mind sitting next to him for an extended period of time.

Dean will never sit down and listen to a classical record straight through, but by the end of the night he has to admit that it makes a hell of a backing track for a heavy make-out session.

The last few bars of the music fade, and it's the perfect cue for the two of them to take things upstairs.

A few days later, they go to dinner. The following week, Dean manages to convince Cas to go with him to a rock concert. One night they cook together, and another they go bowling. But the two of them both travel around a lot for work, and though they try to text each other and stay in contact, their exchanges become less and less frequent until things are less flirtatious banter and more occasional updates on where their lives have been heading recently.

The next time they're both in the same area at the same time, Cas suggests meeting up, but Dean's been on a couple of dates with a girl called Lisa, so he ignores the message.

**4**

In their fourth life, they meet online. Dean has a Tumblr, something his brother Sam always makes fun of him for because _'nobody who's out of high school should still have one of those things_ ', but Dean's found plenty of people his own age on there and anyway, who cares what Sam thinks. Dean's blog is all classic cars and black and white movie stills and, once, a five thousand word account going into every single detail of the time he saw AC/DC in concert, and he's surprised when a pastel aesthetic hipster blog starts following him, out of the blue. He starts scrolling despite himself, and though he doesn't care much about artsy edited photographs of bees on flowers, he finds himself laughing at the way this kid takes every anonymous message so seriously, taking the time to write out a detailed reply to each one, always staying polite even if the message is mean.

He follows back.

He doesn't expect to ever actually communicate with them, but one day the kid posts a collection of really awesome wing tattoo designs, and Dean's not sure he'd ever actually get a tattoo, but these look badass as hell so he reblogs the post. A few days later, the other blog does a tag game (a survey; personal questions about yourself) and tags Dean to do it too. 

Dean would normally ignore that kind of thing, but for some reason he's fascinated by the guy's answers. The guy is in college, around Dean's age, he learns, further proving his point that it's not just a website for teenagers. His name is Cas and he lives on the other side of the country. He's pretentious and liberal and thinks he can change the world and he's such a stereotypical _student_ and Dean normally hates people like him, but this particular guy seems so sweet that Dean's not sure that's even possible.

Dean does the survey himself, including some snarky replies directed straight to Cas, and he's rewarded with a private message in response. 

From then on, they talk sporadically. It's cool to have some kind of a familiar face - screen - who he can send things to when he doesn't know anyone else who'll appreciate them, or go to for completely unbiased advice about a problem. Dean wouldn't exactly say they're close, but one day Cas posts a challenge: 'I bet none of my followers know the answers to these questions about me' - and Dean realizes he can confidently answer eight out of the ten questions.

It's pretty great, until it's not. Dean realizes his follower count is starting to drop as more and more people in his circle move away from the website, and one day, he goes to send a message to Cas and his browser tells him the page can't be found. Cas has deleted his blog, and he didn't even warn anyone.

After that, Dean doesn't really post on his own blog anymore.

**10**

In their tenth life, they hate each other. They live in the same building and Cas' apartment is right above Dean's and they both think the other is the worst neighbor, ever. Cas is always up at ridiculous AM and he must have some kind of exercise equipment in his bedroom or something and he just assumes that because he gets up early, everyone else must do too, because Dean can't remember the last time he wasn't rudely awoken at around six in the morning with the sound of... something or other.

Dean tries whatever he can to get revenge. First, he gets packages sent to the apartment upstairs. He tries sending embarrassing things like sex toys and genital wart cream, but they don't seem to work because Cas lives alone and doesn't get a whole lot of visitors. So then he just sends things that are annoying, like a large envelope of glitter or a singing card that plays 'Never Gonna Give You Up' at top volume or five hundred live beetles.

It's a while before he even notices that Cas is responding. Cas is just so passive aggressive about the whole thing. But after a couple of weeks, Dean realizes that Cas is setting his alarm for five minutes earlier every day, just to cause Dean even more pain and even less sleep.

So Dean tries another tactic. He begins picking girls up in bars and bringing them back to his apartment late at night, encouraging them to make as much noise as possible, making things last as long as he can so that Cas is kept up late and can't possibly wake up at four in the morning because literally nobody can survive on that little sleep.

It works, kind of, because the alarms revert to six o'clock, but Dean is sure that Cas was behind the excessive noise warning he receives a week later. And the two hundred copies of the local newspaper Dean received one Thursday. And the fact that his TV sometimes randomly cuts out, always as Doctor Sexy is about to get to a really exciting scene...

Cas moves out when the lease is up, and Dean gets a full night's (and day's) sleep for the first time in a year, and he tells himself that he doesn't miss those rude awakenings.

**23**

In their twenty-third life, they pass each other every day, but they never quite come into contact. They go to the same high school, and Dean decides he definitely wants to make friends with kids from the other middle school. He sees Cas on the first day of freshman algebra and thinks that he seems interesting and he might want to talk to him, but the following day Cas' seat is empty because he took a test to place out of the class. They see each other in the hallways occasionally, and they smile because maybe the other one looks vaguely familiar, but they don't know each other well enough to stop and talk. 

Sophomore year, they have homerooms across the hall from each other and they both sit by the door. They see each other through the window and occasionally they pull stupid faces at each other when something particularly ridiculous happens, like a fire drill or a really terrible sex ed talk, but they both leave the classrooms with their own distinct groups of friends and keep their heads down as they pass each other.

Junior year, their lunch periods coincide and their social groups, though separate, have tables close to each other in the cafeteria. Cas' friends have quiet conversation or bring homework or books to read, and that's when they're even there. Sometimes, Cas glances over to the tables nearby, to where some of the other kids are laughing loudly about something that happened on TV, only pausing to throw food at each other. He doesn't stare at Dean specifically, but he's aware that he's there. It's oddly soothing to watch the chaos happen close to him but not be part of it.

Senior year, Cas is head of the yearbook committee and he's always organizing some kind of fundraiser around the school. He does bake sales every few weeks and Dean always gets some kind of pie and one day he's standing by the table eating his second slice way too loudly and, business being slow, Cas casually mentions that he made it himself. Dean compliments him on his amazing pies and drops the hint that he can't wait for the next one, but another customer gets there at that moment and the yearbook must have enough funding by now, because there are no more bake sales.

Dean thinks he might have seen Castiel's picture at the front of the yearbook along with a note saying he was going to some smart college like Princeton or Yale, but five years later when Cas is visiting his hometown, they pass each other in the supermarket and they don't recognize each other.

**42**

In their forty-second life, Cas is famous. Dean knows exactly who he is, but the reverse isn't true. And it's not like Dean would even normally watch reality TV, but one afternoon he gets home, tired from working on his car for hours, and he passes out on the couch, lying right on top of the remote, and when he wakes up the show is just _on._

It's an art show, where the hosts take a bunch of people with normal lives who've never picked up a paintbrush since they were in elementary school and stick them in a room with a bunch of art supplies. Then, this one painter who is apparently the Next Big Thing in the art world and has pieces in museums all over the country comes in and tries to teach them things and discover their hidden artistic talent. There's probably some kind of knockout stage after that, but Dean misses the details, because he's too distracted by the painter himself.

He's _really_ beautiful. And Dean's straight, he tells himself, but that doesn't mean he can't appreciate the way this guy's hands work; the way he concentrates so intently on his drawing; the little creases in his forehead as he works the paintbrush just so. Dean knows nothing about art and the finished product is no more than lines on a page to him, but watching the guy create it is just breathtaking.

After that, Dean sets his TV to record the show when it airs and often makes time to watch an episode before bed. He skips over the boring bits that show the contestants in their regular lives before they decided to go on the show, and he just watches for the bits with Castiel, where he strolls into the room and changes the contestants' entire lives with his intensity and his charisma. Or maybe that's just Dean.

One day, he caves and he buys a ticket to be in the live studio audience of the show. He gets in line early and manages to find a seat in the second row, and when Castiel walks out to greet the contestants, Dean can't even cheer along with the rest of the audience, he can only stare. He doesn't take his eyes off Cas for the whole time the cameras are rolling, even as everyone around him is reacting and participating. 

They take a break before the contestants come back and show Castiel their masterpieces. The cameras stop and the people on stage drop their TV smiles and act natural for a while. Castiel glances over to greet the audience and he sees Dean staring, catching his eye before Dean can quickly turn away. Cas waves and smiles.

Dean doesn't think he's ever blushed so hard in his life.

He never goes again, because he's scared Cas will recognize him and think of him as the creepy staring guy, but he still watches the show sometimes, and when he really wants to impress a girl and make her think he's cultured and intelligent, he'll take her to an art gallery. Every time, Cas has painted something new, and every time, Dean will imagine the exact look on his face as he was creating it.

**66**

In their sixty-sixth life, they're best friends. They work together, and maybe it took them a while to get to this point, but in time they're eating lunch together every day, going out to sing karaoke together, visiting each other's houses whenever they can. They're both married and they both have families and commitments and impossible work schedules, but they'll always find time for the other. 

They come from completely different backgrounds, and they've both dealt with a lot in their lives, but it's just so easy to forget that. Because when they're together, it's like they're kids again. When they're together, for a short while nothing else is important and it's just the two of them.

They'll sit next to each other at a conference and they're supposed to be concentrating on what they're doing, but Cas will turn and lean in really close to Dean and whisper a stupid joke in his ear, something that he'd never laugh at under any normal circumstances, but for some reason he'll burst out into silent laughter, silently cursing Cas in his mind as he tries really hard to keep himself under control before anybody notices that he's definitely not paying attention. And when their boss inevitable notices and starts yelling at Dean, Cas will stretch out his hand and squeeze Dean's leg under the table in solidarity.

Every so often, they'll be together and one of them will look at the other and there will be a flash of recognition, that maybe things between the two of them aren't quite what they seem. Maybe their relationship is something more than they thought; something they can't quite explain. They'll stare at the other with a dazed look on their face until an outside force pulls them back to the moment, and they'll shake their heads quickly, the feeling already gone. 

**89**

In their eighty-ninth life, they meet too early, far before either of them can know it's happening. A young blonde woman gives birth to a healthy baby boy who she names Dean, after her own mother. She cries when the nurses take her son away, and they promise her she can have him back soon, as soon as they've done some tests, and that she needs to get some sleep.

Dean cries too as they prod him with all kinds of weird equipment, and he cries again when they leave him all alone under bright lights in a cold, lonely cot in a room full of other identical cots. He makes as much noise as he can and his face goes red and he just wants his mother to wake up and come to take him back.

Shortly after this, a man in a bathrobe brings a baby with bright blue eyes and a small tuft of black hair into the hospital, saying he found him left all alone on the street and didn't know what else to do. This baby doesn't cry. He's the quietest, most docile baby the nurses have ever seen, but the tests they run on him don't bring up anything to worry about, so they place him in a cot in the same room as the other babies, right next to Dean Winchester.

Dean's head lolls to the side and he sees the baby next to him, and he stops crying.

Surprised at the sudden drop in the noise level, the second baby lets out a gurgle, and it's his first ever sound.

An hour later, Mary wakes up and the nurses take Dean back to her. She cradles him in her arms and takes him home. The nurses name the other baby Cas and put him up for adoption; he ends up being taken in by a family on the other side of the state, and he and Dean never see each other again.

**97**

In their ninety-seventh life, they meet too late; right at the end. Dean's visiting his brother in the intensive care unit of the hospital. He sits beside Sammy's bed and holds his hand day and night, refusing to move except to go to the bathroom and to let the doctors examine him.

The whole time, another frail old man is in the bed next to Sammy, and _he_ never gets any visitors at all.

One day, while Sammy is asleep, the other man speaks.

"You two must be a wonderful couple. The fact you've stayed here with him for so long..."

His speech is rough and cracked and it sounds like it physically hurts him to make the words, but Dean can tell that it was once an incredibly beautiful voice.

Dean keeps hold of Sammy's hand with both of his as he turns his chair towards the other man's bed. "Oh, no, he's my brother. But I never settled down, and his wife died a few years back, so now we're all each other has."

"Tell that to my brothers. Not a single one of them has ever visited me."

Dean takes one of his hands off Sammy's and reaches across the gap between the beds, taking the other man's hand too, his arms stretched, bridging the gap, holding onto both of them. "No? Well, I'm visiting you now. I'm staying with you as well as him."

The man's face splits into a smile, the skin on his face stretching as though it's an expression he hasn't made for a really long time, and he croaks out a "Thankyou."

It's only a few hours later that Dean feels the man's hand go limp in his and hears the heart monitor bleep, and as the doctors come to wheel the other bed away, he catches a glimpse of the name 'Castiel Novak' on a patient chart.

A single tear slips down his face as he places his head on Sam's chest, watching Castiel disappear down the hall.

**100**

In their hundredth life, they fall in love. It's beautiful and it's passionate and it's everything they've both been looking for and it's over far, far too soon.

They meet in a supermarket, but neither of them is grocery shopping. Cas is a small town cop - he was pushed into it by his father, and he never particularly wanted to investigate the higher profile cases, preferring to just patrol the streets, observing peoples' everyday lives. Dean's recently lost his job since the bar he worked at closed down, and his brother is home from law school for the summer, and he's desperate. Dean used to be able to get away with this kind of stuff when he was a cute kid and when the cops weren't as observant as Cas is, but this time he gets caught as he tries to slip a jar of peanut butter into his coat.

There's no point fighting it. Dean goes with Cas quietly, figuring this will end up on his criminal record and that he'll have let Sammy down yet again. But on the drive down to the station, somehow Dean and Cas fall into an easy conversation, and it's completely surreal, talking about their hobbies and families and weekend plans through a bulletproof glass partition, and before Dean knows it Cas has driven him right past the station and pulled into the parking lot of a Biggerson's.

"I'm letting you off this time, Dean," Cas says in his gruff cop voice that Dean definitely shouldn't find as attractive as he does, "and I'm going to ask around, see if anyone I know has a job opening going. In the meantime, give me your address. I'm taking you and your brother out to dinner tonight."

He keeps his word about the work, and Dean has a job at a movie theater within a couple of weeks. It's not perfect, but it's enough to keep him within the law until he can find something better. He keeps his word about the dinner, too. They all go out, and it takes a while for Sam to warm to Cas, but by the end of the night they're all talking like they've known each other for years, laughing out loud in the car on the way home. 

The next time they go for dinner, it's just Dean and Cas, and _that_ night ends quite differently.

After that, they just become a part of each other's lives, slotting seamlessly into an easy relationship. Cas takes Dean to visit the police station, and if any of the other cops recognize that they might have seen Dean in the shadier parts of town from time to time, they don't comment. Cas gets a promotion. Dean trains as a mechanic. Sam graduates school and moves to California full time with his girlfriend. Cas and Dean buy a cottage outside of town with a spare room, both of them secretly hoping that there'll be someone to live in it a few years down the line.

Three years to the day after their first meeting, Castiel takes Dean back to that same grocery store. He gets down on one knee and he asks Dean to be his husband because gay marriage is legal in Kansas now and it would just be plain rude for them not to make the most of it, and Dean is trying so hard not to cry in public and he's saying _yes, yes, yes, forever yes_ and they're kissing in front of the frozen produce, blocking off a whole aisle, middle aged women tutting at them as they try to get their shopping carts past.

Dean and Cas book a hotel for the wedding, send Save the Dates to everyone they know, and they're well into the planning stages of the event when _it_ happens.

The two of them are walking home from visiting yet another potential caterer. Cas has technically been on call the whole time, but crime rates are low and it's rare for him to actually get called out anywhere, so they're not too worried. But as they pass through the park, Cas' radio buzzes and he gets asked to deal with a breaking and entering in a house a few streets away.

It's a pretty routine incident, so Cas grabs hold of Dean's hand and pulls him over there. When they arrive, the guy's just leaving, jumping out of a window into a back alley, carrying a backpack full of who knows what. Cas doesn't have time to wait for any backup. He drops Dean's hand and runs to apprehend the guy, and Dean can't explain it, but before the guy has even started to move, he just _knows_ what's going to happen.

Filled with fear for something that hasn't even come to pass, Dean takes off after the two of them, and he reaches Cas' side just as the burglar pulls a gun out of his back pocket and points it straight at Cas.

Time stops, and Dean feels like he has all the time in the world to think about this, but he doesn't need to. There's only one decision he could possibly make here. Up to this point, the easiest choice he made in his life was loving Cas, and there's nothing he wouldn't do to show that.

 _Not even this_ , he thinks, as he launches himself into Cas, pushing him out of the way, and Cas' chest against his hands, trying to resist what he can't possibly let Dean do for him, is the last thing Dean ever feels.

**101**

In their hundred and first life, they barely meet.

It's an ordinary Monday morning and, uncharacteristically, Dean Winchester is late for work. His brother Sam brought his new girlfriend Jess to stay for the weekend and they wouldn't stop talking over breakfast, meaning Dean's getting on the subway a good twenty minutes after he usually does. He's terrified of his boss, a creepy guy with a British accent who only ever wears all black, and in his hurry to get to work Dean knocks into a guy getting off at the same stop as him. The man, who wears a long tan trench coat and has an ID badge from the art museum, drops his expensive coffee, and a creamy light brown liquid spills all over the platform.

"I'm so sorry," Dean apologizes as the man rights himself on Dean's shoulder. "Here..."

Dean digs into his pocket and pulls out a five dollar bill. "For the coffee." He thrusts it into the man's hand and then he's off running up the stairs out of the subway station.

But in their hundred and first life, Dean turns, and he watches black hair and a trench coat vanish, walking away from him in the other direction and he _knows_. Knows this moment is going to change - no, not the rest of his life; the rest of his life is nothing compared to what this moment will affect. And something tells him to take a risk, so he runs full out in the other direction, back down the platform to the opposite exit, and he taps the man on the shoulder just as he's reaching the top of the steps, emerging out into the sunlight.

The man turns, and his eyes catch the light, and they're this stunning blue that's like nothing Dean has ever seen before.

In their hundred and first life, they meet again, right after the first meeting. The man smiles at Dean; a genuine smile and not a polite 'you just gave me five dollars so I'm fairly obligated to smile at you' smile, and Dean blushes and looks at his feet as he says "I'm sorry, I know we never met until what happened just there, but... you're cute and I was wondering if I could maybe have your number?"

The man chuckles and pulls a pen from one of the many pockets of his coat, digging around for a scrap of paper. Dean hands him one of his own business cards, face down so that the other man can write on the blank side.

But the guy turns it over and reads, out loud, "Dean Winchester. Director of Sales and Marketing," and all Dean can do is nod. "I'm Castiel," he continues, as he scrawls a number on the back, glancing it over to make sure every digit is readable.

Dean can't pinpoint exactly where he's heard that name before.

Dean Winchester is really, really late for work that day and he loses his job because of it. He balances a box of his things from his office in one arm as he hobbles back towards the subway, and with his other hand he takes out his phone and he calls Castiel Novak, who accepts an invitation to lunch that day. They go to an Italian bistro in the quiet part of town and eat paninis and smoothies and talk about everything from the decor of the restaurant to what happens after you die, and when they leave, they make plans to see each other again the following evening, and as they say goodbye, their eyes linger on each other's lips for a while before they turn away.

In their hundred and first life, they make it. Neither of them knows quite how long they were waiting, but as they gaze into each other's eyes, hands joined as they say the words 'I do', they both know it was worth the wait.

Dean Winchester clears his throat, and begins to say his vows.

"Castiel, if I had to wait a hundred lives for this moment, I would do it gladly, because today would be more than enough reward..."


End file.
